I've studied the film industry, both academically and informally, for 25 years and extensively written about it for the last five years. My outlets for film criticism, box office commentary, and film-skewing scholarship have included The Huffington Post, Salon, and Film Threat. Follow me at @ScottMendelson.

The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

'Thor: The Dark World' And The "Problems" With Box Office Tracking

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - OCTOBER 14: Actor Tom Hiddleston attends the 'Thor: The Dark World' press conference at Conrad Hotel on October 14, 2013 in Seoul, South Korea. Tom Hiddleston is visiting South Korea to promote his recent film 'Thor: The Dark World' which will be released in South Korea on October 30. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Well, the first official box office tracking reports are out, and it appears that Marvel and Disney’s Thor: The Dark World is heading towards a $75 million opening weekend. That makes decent sense, with a decent but unspectacular uptick from the first Thor’s $65m debut, since both installments are in 3D. My gut says it’ll be a little higher than that (The Avengers was basically Thor 2 in terms of its narrative), but I’m saving such thoughts for the theatrical review. We’ll know in a few weeks whether the box office tracking gods have once again called its shot or dropped the ball, but this “news” comes on the heels of an expose of sorts in the Los Angeles Times regarding the accuracy, or lack thereof of studio and outsider firm tracking data regarding a film’s opening weekend as well as newer tracking methods grounded in social media. Point being, the official numbers folks are wrong about as often as they are right. And, quite frankly, that’s a good thing.

The current obsession with pre-release tracking figures loses sight of two important things. First of all, pre-release tracking is not supposed to be a magic crystal ball which will predict, with pinpoint accuracy, what a film will debut with weeks prior to the opening. It is, and I know I’ve said this before, supposed to be a tool for studios to measure the success of their ongoing marketing campaigns, with the numbers released early enough for them to make changes in how they are marketing a given film and who they need to target a little stronger. Just like political polling, tracking will tell Marvel and Disney that perhaps Thor: The Dark World is doing about as well with young females as young males (Thanks, Chris Hemsworth and/or Natalie Portman!), and that perhaps they can afford to allocate marketing resources to Soccer Moms (more Tom Hiddleston or Idris Elba!) or Nascar Dads (more… Kat Dennings and/or Rene Russo?). And, if Disney is happy with that $75 million predicted figure and where interest is strong or weak, then they should basically keep doing what they are doing.

Second of all, the obsession with pre-release tracking often causes pundits or studio executives who should know better to ignore their own seat-of-their-pants wisdom. One of the key examples cited in the L.A. Times piece was the notion that The Wolverine was “tracking” at over/under $80 million, which in turn made its “mere” $53 million debut register as a disappointment. But looking at it logically, a lower-budget sequel to X-Men: Origins: Wolverine, a film that pretty much everyone hated yet scored an $85m debut as the 2009 summer kick-off film, was never going to open anywhere near the heights of its predecessor. Curiosity can fuel a major opening weekend for the first film, but the casually curious aren’t neccessarily going to return for a second round. Ditto the “tracking” for Kick-Ass 2, which projected a $25m debut compared to the $19m debut of the first film. It’s $13m debut was a miss, but who in their right minds thought that Kick-Ass 2 was going to spark more general audience interest than the controversial and media-friendly original entry?

The real problem with how the media treats tracking is, of course and once again, how these numbers, which are guestimates and intended to be tools for the studios to massage their marketing campaigns, are used by rival studios and hit-bait pundits wanting to proclaim every major release to be a preempitve flop. As such, you already have certain pundits, possibly egged on by rival studios, implying that Thor: The Dark World‘s theoretical $75 million debut is somehow disappointing because it’s not the $128m that Iron Man 2 opened to back in May 2010. Of course, if the film opens well and holds up enough to be profitible in relations to studio expectations and its budget, then much of this chatter will be irrelevant. But the whole “It’s tracking low, it’s already a flop!” chit-chat that springs up from time-to-time (cough-Pacific Rim-cough) is just one more distraction that the studios have to deal with instead of merely concentrating on selling the movie to the desired audience.

Aside from all of these very real concerns, there is the tendancy to frown upon the idea of a positive box office surprise. Chris Lee’s LA Times piece was partially predicated on Gravity‘s surprise $55 million debut weekend, despite the official studio tracking pegging the debut as over/under $40m. As someone who has followed this stuff since 1991, there is nothing that makes me happier than when a film overperforms in relation to tracking. It was exciting and fun when Rush Hour exploded out of the gate with $31 million back in 1998 (fifteen years ago… yes you’re old), just as it was grativying to see 20th Century Fox’s X-Men bucked doom-sayers and score $54m, one of the biggest opening weekends ever at the time back in July 2000. It was beyond exciting when Spider-Man blew past everyone’s $85m-ish opening weekend guestimates and soared to $114m back in May 2002. And it was exciting to see Gravity soar into the record books a few weeks ago, partially fueled by general audiences discovering what we critics knew a few weeks prior, that Gravity was something truly special.

Maybe Thor: The Dark World will open with just over/under$75 million on the weekend of November 8th. Or maybe it will open a bit higher as general audience members decide late in the game to catch a movie over that weekend and opt for the one they happen to know is opening because they saw a commercial for it during Grey’s Anatomy. But when you read that Thor: The Dark World is tracking at $75 million for its debut weekend, please remind yourself (and others) that it is not a magical prediction nor is it an exact science. It is a rough guestimate fueled by pre-release tracking statistics but intended merely to help the studios with their ongoing marketing campaign. And if I tell you that I hope the numbers are wrong and that the film opens even higher, it’s merely because it’ll be a lot more fun to write about Thor: The Dark World‘s opening weekend if it offers a bit of surprise versus merely reaffirming what we all allegedly “knew” three weeks prior.

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So only Soccer Moms like Tom Hiddleston/Loki? LMAO! Tom Hiddleston/Loki has a bigger female fan base than Chris Hemsworth/Thor that ranges from teenagers to women older that Mr. Hiddleston himself. Even the Thor fans acknowledge that! But I do feel bad for Christopher Eccleston/Malekith. He’s the real villain in this movie but he’s hardly getting any attention at all.

If the tracking numbers are for studio executives to mend their marketing, then it doesn’t quite make sense that they are released to the public rather than sent straight to the studios and their advertising departments. However since they are released in the media it allows for the movie enthusiasts to speculate the numbers for a certain film or weekend.

I am personally curious to see how Gravity will preform in its third weekend, so I looked at the box office estimates. The source I saw had Gravity and Carrie at around $35 million, with Escape Plan and The Fifth Estate preforming poorly. However, this could be completely different than the final total.

I think that box office estimates could be less of an issue if the movie’s budget and/or how much money the film needs to earn in order to be successful is taken into account or at least talked about alongside box office estimates. This way more people will be able to see certain films as a success even if they do not “win their weekend” or reach the estimates set previous to their release.

And I can nearly guarantee that the young female portion of the audience will be more interested in Tom Hiddleston than Chris Hemsworth, if tumblr is any indication.

“If the tracking numbers are for studio executives to mend their marketing, then it doesn’t quite make sense that they are released to the public rather than sent straight to the studios and their advertising departments.”

They didn’t used to be, and they arguably should not be. But in this day and age, they are either leaked or formally released. And yes, Tom Hiddleston is absolutely driving the female interest of all ages. But that’s for another piece coming down the pike.

If you’d done a little more research for this article, you would know that Tom Hiddleston has been single-handedly promoting Thor for the past month, while Hemsworth and Portman have been occupied elsewhere (Rush promo, parenting, etc). Tom is the single most important reason why the tracking numbers are good with young females (and with females of all ages). No offense to the lovely Chris Hemsworth, but the marketing has been all about Loki! Marvel knows what the people want.

Actually, I hate to burst your bubble, but Chris and Natalie were on the Graham Norton show today. I don’t know when they taped that episode, but I presume it’s to promote “Thor 2″ (cannot think of another reason why they’d be appearing together).

If you had glanced at the photo I included, you would have seen a photo of Tom Hiddleston promoting Thor 2. Those asides were intended as humor, as well as a preview of sorts of something I’m writing about in the next week or two regarding how gosh-darn sexy the whole cast of Thor 2 is and how that works to Disney/Marvel’s advantage.

Scott you make some great points, when I first seen 75 million as the early tracking numbers, that’s about what I expected. Remember “The Avengers”, “TDKR” & “IM3″ all opened with early tracking of around 125 million, and we how much those films opened up with. “The Hunger Games” opened it’s tracking around 90 million i believe. I’m not saying “Thor: The Dark World’s” box office will exceed it’s early tracking like those films did, but it’s highly reasonable to think this film has a very good chance of exceeding 75 million it’s opening weekend. At ‘Boxoffice.com’ they have it opening to 91 million. I’ve been saying for a while now that I see this film opening between 90-110 million, and nothing is changing my mind about that because I know i’ll be right. I remember just before “The Avengers” opened last year, box office analysts had it opening between 150-175 million, and we all know how those predictions turned out, they all missed badly. At that time I truly believed it had a chance to be the first film to crack 200 million in it’s first weekend, I posted that on several sites before it even opened. I think ‘Thor: TDW’ has a very good shot at reaching 100 million it’s opening weekend. The first film did 66 million and that was before “The Avengers”, and now both ‘Thor’ and ‘Loki’ are immensely more popular and well known to the general audience than they were back then. If you took out “The Avengers” than I could see a 75-80 million opening weekend, but add in the extra exposure from the wildly successful “Avengers” and you probably can add another 20-25 million for it’s opening weekend. Take “IM3″, without “The Avengers” it doesn’t post the second biggest opening weekend of all time with 174 million, I think it would have opened around 130-140 million tops. This film will get a post-Avengers box office bump as well, mark my words.

You also bring up a very good point with “The Wolverine” tracking for 70-80 million but only opening with 53 million. No some might argue the same thing can happen with “Thor: TDW”, but I can’t see that happening at all. For one “The Wolverine” was following up a film that was hated by people where the first “Thor” was pretty well received by critics and audiences, secondly while “The Wolverine” was following a film that disappointed people “Thor 2″ is basically following arguably the most beloved comic book film of all time. No i’m not expecting “Thor: TDW” to touch “IM3′s” 174 million opening or even “IM2′” 128 million opening, but I think it can open reasonably close to “IM2′s” box office opening, especially if it’s well received by audiences and critics. Just my take on it, we’ll find out for sure in 3 weeks. But also keep an eye on how it performs overseas early, if those numbers are impressive it could bold very well for it’s domestic box office aspirations.

Great callback on Rush Hour, I would enjoy seeing a list of films that ‘surprised’ on opening weekend; not sleeper hits like ‘Big Fat Greek Wedding’ but movies that blew away expectations right off the bat. I was very young at the time, but I remember finding The Waterboy’s $40 million debut shocking. $40 million in 1998 sounded very, very high.

I remember being devestated at THE WATERBOY’s $40m debut, because I was not an Adam Sandler fan and I was rooting for THE SIEGE, which underperformed ($13m) on the same weekend. Today I’m older/wiser, but I occasionally took this stuff a little too personally as a teenager.